Happy Face

Nolan, a player with a decade of experience in England behind him, needed time to settle, but not the half a team we brought in from France in January.

You start to wonder about the reasons Ashley has to do stuff like this. The best I can come up with is that our 5th place finish was built on the back of poor performances, but the opposition were worse. We need the opposition to underestimate us as much as they did that season. Even then, anyone that turned up would knock three, four or five past us. Joe Kinnear is THE PERFECT man to bring in and have the opposition expecting total disarray at the club and a walk in the park on the pitch.

Wasn't there an announcement made that (as was the case last season) only Alan Pardew would be doing the public speaking for the club. Kinnear must have had a circumcision accident because he seems to be permanently half cocked.

Tell you what though, he's cheap.

No. His complete lack of experience in the role. His inability to communicate, his shortcomings when acting in a professional manner, his limited capacity to think before speaking, his proven track record of lying (or exaggerating to be kind). The fact he has not been involved in the game for 9 years now, outside of his short stint managing us. The fact he's never unearthed a player that's shown more ability than a cart horse. His stupidity, his aggression, his age, his health.......the combination of all those things (without thinking too deeply about other examples) mean he will not do well in the role.

Kinnear for England?

We aren't disagreeing while we're concentrating on his ability to cover the debts he accrues. Where he hasn't improved the financial situation (so far) is by doing anything pro-active to grow revenue or to lower debt to levels they were at when he arrived. 4 more years of survival and improving TV money might get him to a point where the bottom line looks improved.

All he is saying is give piss(head) a chance.

Did I mention I have secured tickets for Bruno Mars? Oh yes.

Where has the view that Pardew and Carr are at war come from?

Roasting a potato isn't enough?...you have to fry them in oil afterwards?

Climbing a tree with me nephew a couple of weeks ago... ...look at all the blubber. I'll have to get a bike.

Absolutely....and if Ashley handed the club back to Shepherd tomorrow for free and said "you've got 6 months to find a bank that will cover the loans" then the club would be facing administration again.

I'm up to 15 and a half stone. At 6'4" the ideal weight calculators say I'm officially overweight.

Aye, but none of that means Newcastle United could now secure borrowing of £130m from Barclays when they were refusing to lend us £70m in 2006. I'm only trying to make the valid distinction between whether the club is in an improved financial position or the owner is better able to personally subsidise it. I think it's clearly the latter.

I agree. I don't see what Ashley done with the club that makes us more of a going concern though? He's personally had to cover the growth of debt during his reign. The fact Shepherd couldn't afford to is why I agree financial ruin was more likely. The fact Ashley can afford to doesn't make the books much more attractive. Basically, he could afford to cover the losses until TV money grew to be enough to cover them.

Apparently the money put in to cover relegation was on different terms to his original investment. That was always repayable following promotion. Don't believe the rest of it is... at the moment.

@@Tooj http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/06/digg_reader_aol_reader_feedly_which_google_reader_alternative_should_i_use.html Slate have done a helpful flowchart so you can choose where to go

Tiote's staying then.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/bowl_phone_sex_20130630/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Truthdig%2FChrisHedges+Chris+Hedges+on+Truthdig

Twice a year to warm the bench for whoever he was with that season.

Give or take, that figure will be based upon £134m to buy the club, £110m spent on debt and a spending spree when he arrived and £23m that was pumped in following relegation. Total £267m. He took back £11m in the last set of accounts though and is due to take back £18m this year. So even if that was the case, it should be down to under £240m soon.

I follow 683 people. So my timeline would have thousands of tweets daily. I hardly read 1% of them I would guess. I have a "Best of Twiter" list, which has 8 people on i think. I read everything from the people on that list. Less than 50 tweets a day on there I would guess. I have a friends list which I probably read everything on too. People i actually know in real life. There's a few dozen of them, but the majority of them don't tweet much anyway....or like me, 1 or 2 a day tops. Football, music, films and news make up the vast majority of people I follow and I just dip in and out of those as and when. I just read the most recent tweets in each once I've gone through the above, if I have time. If I'm really desperate, then I'll look at my Toontastic list last

I don't go in for the argument that popular = good at all. Sex on Fire is not in any way comparable to the early dirty southern blues rock template Kings of Leon were built on, it's much more of a pop song. For those of us that loved the first album it's a disappointing direction they have taken. For people that like pop music it is a better song than Molly's Chambers though...and far more people like pop rock than dirty southern blues rock. The White Stripes took that about as far as it could go without getting TOO mainstream and achieved double platinum sales...Kings of Leon ran to the middle ground and went 9 times platinum as a result. Mumford were never particularly far from the mainstream to start with, so it's not like they could particularly disappoint in embracing it, but their mainstream schtick was good in the first place. So what if they are Mungo Jerry for our generation, In the Summertime is still a class tune.